vaultofthearchonfandomcom-20200214-history
116803-should-support-focused-gear-be-more-obvious-to-players
Content ---- might be able to find an addon that highlights your classes support stats in green and assault stats in red or nag carbine into just making it a basic option since, not trying to be insulting here, i don't think most addon writers focus on newbie helper type stuff | |} ---- ---- ---- What would help most is having a second gear set, while leveling at least the game throws so much gear at you that your backpack is just a constant mess If you had a place to store it outside of all that it would be very easy to keep a support set in order | |} ---- ---- The problem with that is everyone shares quest rewards, AND has different stats that are important. A change like that would require someone to go through literally every piece of quest gear, link it to every single class and denote if it is more support or assault, and then pieces that are neither (quite common) would get nothing and look weird. An easier and less time-intensive solution would be to pop up around level 10 or so, before the first group zones, and explain about the different roles, and how gear that you get while leveling may be for assault or support, and to make sure to keep support gear if that is a role you plan on doing. They could do these by class so it could even include class specific stats to look for. | |} ---- This is true Mae, I remember now that one of the reasons I didn't know what to pick was because many of the choices were not clearly one or the other.. but I thought it had more to do with stat micromanagement (it still might actually.. don't quote me on this). | |} ---- ---- Chua not like this idea. Is like dummy version of gear. Chua quite happy to have different stats for different classes. | |} ---- What's the difference though? Giving the same thing 3 different names doesn't make it special. We all use the same stats already. | |} ---- I agree with this, though I do like the color coded idea No we don't? Explain | |} ---- ---- We all use AP/SP/Crit/ST/Crit sev etc. They just have different assigned names per class. IE brutality is AP for warriors but brutality is strikethru for slingers. Feels like they put a bunch of names and the classes in a hat and drew random pairings. | |} ---- The problem with this idea is that people will have no idea how close they are to milestones with this layout. And the milestone feature is a cool idea imo, so don't get rid of that | |} ---- I could be the same, but instead of say a milestone every 200 brutality, you'd have one every 50AP. Same for other stats. I'm only suggesting changing the names of the stats to what they are, instead of it gives you. And runes would give you sensible stats as well, say air rune of .3% crit, or water rune of .1% focus regen. As it stands you have no idea how much you're getting from anything unless you've memorized the ratios, for example deflect rating being 160 = 1%, and therefore totally worthless to rune, because insight runes (support power for healers, deflect rating for tanks, makes sense right?!) only give you ~11-16 deflect rating. It's overly complicated. Main stat example: Old: Brutality = AP (for 2 classes) Finesse = AP (for 2 classes) Moxie = AP (for 2 classes) New: AP = AP (for everyone) | |} ---- While i actually agree the system they designed is kind of goofy, It actually does make gear different for each class Basically they made it so every piece of gear outside of some accessories is class restricted which is a bit silly imo. It also leads to some strangeness like having the same stat multiple times on one piece of gear; like for an esper healer it is pretty common to get finesse, brutality, and crit severity all on the same item and they are all crit severity. But just like making an addon that detects your class and color codes based on spec you could probably make one that just converts your visual of an item to raw stats if it was more visually pleasing to you | |} ---- More likely than not, you have trouble picking because the stat layout on the vast majority of quest gear is like "wtf?" for most classes It seems almost all of it has kind of a half-tank thing going on The quest reward gear is actually bad enough that you can craft 4 sets for i believe it's 14,24,34,44 and never find a single upgrade within those 10 level gaps (yes I know there are a few oddball, insanely good, rare drops but you can't count on rare drops happening while leveling and interestingly enough the ones I've seen have been purely secondary stats) | |} ---- ---- It also dramatically inflates loot tables too though, and thanks to that (and terrible itemization) WS loot is 99% utter trash. Itemization fixes + my proposed system would make for a tidy loot table, with clear tier upgrades, and being able to pick out upgrades at a glance. Nothing like having something drop (say light armor) that has 30 less moxie and 40 less brutality but has 16 more raw crit rating, and 27 raw strikethrough and 2 more finesse. It's like, let me check my milestones, and do ratio conversions to see if 30 moxie gives me more crit % than 16 crit raitng........ screw it, it's 2 more main stat I'll take it. Vs: Equipped peice: 40AP 3% crit 1% strikethru New piece of dropped gear: 42AP 2.7% crit 2% strikethru Make sense how a revised system would make things sooo much easier? | |} ---- This is news to me.. You mean that support gear for my alt engineer actually makes her support abilities hit higher dps? *confused* ... if true then I have been selecting gear in an entirely wrong way. :mellow: | |} ---- I think it's obvious enough on the character pane which stats do what. The only further explanation that would help would be showing how much strike-through is required to hit an equal level NPC and that critical hits affect healing as well as damage. | |} ---- Yes, AP increases the damage of all the abilities in the assualt tab, SP increases the damage/healing of all abilities in the support tab. And the utility tab uses AP and SP (iirc) to increase the damage/healing of all abilities in it. | |} ---- ---- I think this is more of an issue than how gear is identified. My guess is that for anyone brave enough to tank or heal, they are going to know what gear they are looking for. The problem is keeping up with it. It takes up space, is easy to crush by accident, and overall just a pain to manage. One change Carbine could make that would help out with healers and tanks in the game is to give people the ability to maintain a separate set of gear outside of bag space (and safe from being crushed) that is easily swappable. I'd say tie it to the LAS, but there needs to be a way to change LAS without changing gear too. This one thing is what has kept me from even trying to heal on my slinger (despite that I have almost full healing epics sitting in my bank). | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- I mean, secondary stats and modifiers, maybe, but the primary stats? I thought Wildstar's gearing was pretty simple in practice. Then again, I played a lot of EVE... EDIT: As a more constructive note, how about later areas, raids, and RPVP doesn't drop you gear, but idiosyncratic parts for gear that crafters make? I raised that idea for endgame raiding (quick recap is that bosses drop BoP tokens, crafters can make un-usable BoE gear at all content levels however those would be limited or altered, and the original people getting the tokens then apply them to the unusable BoE gear to make usable BoP gear with the custom stats the crafters put on). That could work everywhere. Then you could get your gear tailored to whatever role/roles you want. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- I thought the fact that your abilities are divided into Assault, Support and Utility categories made it pretty obvious that Assault power affected Assault skills, and Support power affected Support skills. | |} ---- No, but what would a player do in this game who needs a tooltip to inform them which gloves are for dps and which are for support? | |} ---- Carbine, I demand Utility Power asap! ;) | |} ---- This. Anyone who actually needs help figuring this out is doomed from the start. If they need to be told what gear to wear, they probably also need to be told to stay out of the red and that leveling up is a good thing! OP must be playing with 10-year-olds. | |} ---- There are Support powers that also assault enemies (besides taunting for example, or giving defensive boosts). I thought that the damage aspect was also calculated by the Assault power.. but I just learned that it is entirely covered by the Support power and nothing else. This means for me that I don't have to over-complicate things by mixing my gear and just pick the pieces with the highest support as it will also increase my actual dps. It is a relief knowing that you don't lose dmg output this way. :) | |} ---- ---- Isn't that called PVP power? | |} ---- ^ This is precisely what I was going to suggest. I think tagging specific gear as DPS or support would help. However, with randomly generated stats on items, two different classes using each type of armor, and stats that do different things for each class, specific gear would be difficult to classify and would often be in a grey area somewhere between DPS and support. Players are ultimately going to have to learn their class's individual stats unless RNG is removed from drops. However, I think inventory is very limited no matter what level the character is, and giving players a place to track and set up their alternate gear set would be another way to encourage use of each class's non-DPS role throughout the game. It'd also prevent players from accidentally selling their support gear, which I'm ashamed to admit happened to me twice as I was leveling. | |} ---- Pretty much... Abilities in the support tab are all effected by support power only Abilities in the assault tab are all effected by assault power only Abilities in the utility tab are all effected by both assault and support power. Though if you're trying to focus on damage you should switch to assault power instead of support power. You'll get a much better output than you would as support. Least it sounds like you're trying to be DPS with support power from this post...If I'm wrong ignore me, but I highly advise switching... | |} ---- ---- ---- This is not true. For example, both Medic's and Stalkers use medium armor. Medics use Tech for AP, and Stalkers use Tech for SP. Yes, all tanks use Tech for support, and all heals us Insight for support, but that doesn't make Insight and Tech exclusively support stats. IMO, they should change Medics to use Moxie as their AP, that way all classes are using one of the 3 red stats for AP. Medic's are the only class that doesn't follow that Fin/Brut/Moxie are their attack stats. | |} ---- I wouldn't be opposed... In all seriousness, though, we're talking about something that helps a new player figure out itemization in the first place. IMO, anything that makes the game more approachable (without actually nerfing content) is a good thing. | |} ---- The problem is that making it really obvious what gear you need to choose removes the illusion of choice. At the moment, a lot of players get to feel like they are making significant decisions when choosing upgrade items and passing on stuff with stats they don't need. This is part of the rpg experience- otherwise they could just hand out gear that was something like "DPS Slinger, Support Warrior", etc. | |} ---- I think a lot of that lack of choice ties into the discussion in this thread, as well though. What we maybe have today is just the illusion of choice - if you understand the stats, there's pretty much only one viable route to go with gearing decisions for each role you may hold. | |} ---- Yes, it is true. Every healer uses Insight. Every tank uses Tech. Every single one. There are no exceptions. Medics using Tech as a DPS stat is irrelevant to the fact that every tank uses Tech. The character's class is already checked when displaying item tooltips, that is why you can see how your Stalker Support Power or your Medic's Assault Power is affected when you mouse over a piece of gear with Tech. If gear were tagged as Support, no medium-armor wearer would ever be confused because the client already takes class into account before showing them any information, and that would include any Support tags that could be added. There is no room for confusion there at all. With the way items are currently statted, preserving the illusion of choice for those that don't know any better is taking those who most need help and setting them up to fail. | |} ---- Right, which is why it's an illusion :) | |} ---- It's pretty much part of the MMO experience- learning about what stats are an how they work. I'm not really defending it, but the "illusion of choice" is kind of how gear has always worked in any rpg I've played. Usually there is a clear correct path. I mean, they could just get rid of stats and have "Spellslinger DPS chest level 86", "Warrior Tank Hands level 124" or whatever, but most RPGs don't do that for some reason. | |} ---- ---- Isn't that with many MMOs though? Toward in-game you pretty much only have one or two choices to gear up for your role. | |} ---- Outside of EVE Online, yes, you're right. Min/Maxing leaves only one set of viable choices no matter how many options we get. It's just the nature of the beast. Most of the customization is in the LAS, not the gear. | |} ---- That does not make it the right way to go about things though. Most MMOs fall into this trap because it's easier to manage, at first. Then later, as the game ages, and as the level cap increases, the mudflation becomes game-breaking. | |} ----